


Wednesday Night, Thursday Morning

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [50]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Addiction, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Porn, Bad Decisions, Depression, F/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 01:25:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5807902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's easy to run from your problems when you have a time machine. (Not as grimdark as the tags imply)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wednesday Night, Thursday Morning

**Author's Note:**

> for theclockiscomplete/stardustedship, who prompted: at the end of Last Christmas, Clara does not try to wake up. In fact, she's woken up. The whole thing is played so well,but ever addressed again. Clara knows that if she stays, she dies. And what does she do? she snuggles up to santa claus instead of waking up. Clara is a beacon of life and loving it. but then she loses danny and i wondered if, for just a moment, if she wasn't just a little suicidal. it would have been a peaceful death. A happy and painless one. I wonder if she weighed that.

There’s something exhilarating about near-death experiences. The rush isn’t why the Doctor does what he does (or at least he tells himself this), but it’s there. How everything is just a bit brighter, more beautiful, after pulling yourself back from the brink. How you feel present in the world in a way you don’t usually. The occasional simplicity of existence. Adrenaline, relief, fear draining away and leaving you somehow cleansed.

So he understands. A starship saved from crashing just in the nick of time - the TARDIS materializing around them just as the guards breach the door - Clara’s laughing, breathless. He feels it too, although not so much with the outward display. She more than makes up for his lack of visible excitement, sweeping him up into a hug, spinning him around.

And then - the tenor of the moment changes.

“Hey,” she says, peering up at him with those big wide eyes. She’s still holding on and they’re still moving, but slower now.

His back against the console. Clara’s hands drifting away from the Platonic Places and onto - elsewhere. He knows what this is. And why it is, or at least a general idea of some potential reasons - a response to traumatic experiences, a pressure valve for excess energy, a need for physical affection. She’s strong-willed, Clara is: what she wants she tends to get. At least where he’s concerned. And what she wants right now is this.

Whether or not he wants this as well is somewhat besides the point. He’s willing to let it happen. He’s not - it isn’t like that, is all. Sex is a pleasant-enough activity that his friend is interested in participating in. This doesn’t need to mean more than that.

So he says ‘Hey’ back, and grins crookedly, and bites his lip to keep from saying anything else. Her fingers toying with his belt buckle, and then he’s undone (in all the possible ways), one last you-sure-you’re-okay-with-this before she’s fucking him. Clothes on, efficient, her face buried in his neck, hands pulling his hair hard enough that it hurts.

Doesn’t have vast quantities of control, this time around. Spent it all on looking mysterious and serious-minded. Goes way too long before she does, but that’s one of the things fingers are for. His brain on lockdown, hand fumbling between her legs as she squirms, and if he can’t quite catch his breath - it’s the physical exertion, is all.

Nothing unfolds, no vulnerabilities are bared. The psychic connection, if they bothered, would be weak and mostly one-sided. They don’t bother. He doesn’t feel like it’s his place to ask. So no meeting of the minds, no cosmic joining. Just fucking. It’s not - it’s not like he wanted or expected more. This is just something they’re doing. No biggie. Skin against skin, sweat and strained muscles and her slick cunt pulsing around him. The occasional simplicity of existence.

She looks more relaxed after she comes. Stands to reason. Pressure valve, remember? He doesn’t mind being that for her. He doesn’t mind being anything for her. She pulls her skirt back down and pats him fondly on the cheek. Or, fondness is part of it, but there’s something else as well. He’s still figuring out how her face works, the mechanics of human emotion.

She leaves, back to her basic boring life, and they don’t mention it. He doesn’t think about it, he doesn’t.

 

* * *

Wednesday, half-past seven at night. Clara will be coming home soon. He waits in her flat, trying not to break anything. Or at least not break anything so badly he can’t fix it. The toaster, the hoover, a small figurine of a cat that he knocked off her bookcase with a stray elbow - that’s one of the things superglue is for, everything is fine.

She’s got a lot of stuff, for someone so young. He’s got a lot of stuff too, but he’s…somewhat older than she is, and you accrue knick-knacks when you bop around the universe like he does. It’s a natural side-effect. But this, all this, it’s on purpose. Interior decoration. Framed posters and mementos and potted plants. Carefully arranged, immaculately clean.

And the calendar she keeps, page flipped to the actual current month (he’d assumed that was a myth, people who kept up with calendars), things scheduled and noted. A birthday here, dental appointment there. A neat little red-pen dash on every Wednesday. That was him, he was the red dash.

A life well-organized. He picks off dried gum from the bottom of his boot and flicks it over his shoulder. Every Wednesday, just Wednesday. Because Tuesday night is for parent-teacher meetings and Thursday morning is for an improving jog around the neighborhood.

Labeled Tupperware containers in the refrigerator. Leafy greens, small purple things. He’s got a handful of loose Smarties in his pocket. A dry-erase board, to-do list - work, hobbies, phone numbers. The things she does when she’s not with him.

What he does when she’s not with him is basically what he does when she is. At this point, he really doesn’t know how to do anything else. He intervenes and he runs and he stumbles half-arsed through civil wars and royal balls and bar brawls in filthy back alleys. And he sits, jittery, checking her clock every twenty Earth seconds, the itch building and building and building -

And she comes, finally, eyes rolling as she locks the door behind her, puts her purse on the table where she always puts her purse.

“What d'you have for me today?” she asks.

“Oh, plenty of things. Everything. I fixed the randomizer, wanna give it a go?”

 

They give it a go, and wind up in an android revolution. She puts on a mask and starts throwing Molotov cocktails. He does too. The sky gone red, and they’re laughing.

 

* * *

“We’re not still dreaming,” she says, for the fourth time.

“No. Well, probably not. Hard to say for sure. But we passed the test, remember?” The one where they read out passages from the same book, which this time was an Ikea catalog. Bjölnar, closet storage system. Design solutions for modern living. Available in chrome, white, and birch.

She looks at him, holds his gaze. He knows that expression. He’s seen it once before.

The pressure valve. A need for physical intimacy, physical reassurance. A loneliness, maybe. He swallows hard against the lump in his throat. The lust, he’s okay with that. It’s a thing that can happen sometimes. The raised pulse, flushed skin, internal twinge as she steps close, closer. Efficiently unbuckling his belt, unzipping his flies, big eyes now directed at his chest.

He stares over the top of her head, at the TARDIS doors, the lock-engaged light blinking green. Her hand down his trousers. He thinks about running. Thinks about birch-ply shoe organizers. He’s half-hard already, just the pad of her thumb on the tip of his cock and the fact that it’s her and it’s fine, it’s okay. It’s okay.

It’s not okay.

“Is this about Danny?” he asks, fully aware that it’s the wrong thing to say.

She yanks her hand away, wiping it off on her nightgown. “Why. In the _fuck_. Would you bring him up now.”

“Look. I know it’s hypocritical of me-”

“Somehow I doubt you’re that self-aware.”

He plows on. “I know it’s hypocritical of me to say this, but you can’t fix what’s broken with short-term gratification.” _And I’m maybe just not quite into being used, which is also hypocritical_ , is what he doesn’t say.

“You think I’m broken.”

“I think you’re scared and you’re sad and you’re doing what I do, which isn’t any good, and-” He’s rambling; she’s unimpressed. He starts again.

“You were asleep.”

“That’s kind of implied. What with the dream-crabs and all.”

“No. I mean-” What does he mean? What does any of this mean? One more tally mark in the ‘reasons to keep your damn mouth shut’ column. “The others, they. They woke themselves up. They were done with the dream, they knew if they stayed there they’d die, so they woke up. And you, when I found you, you were.”

Dying, she was dying. She’d almost died.

“Still asleep, yeah.” She’s looking over his shoulder, at the TARDIS console. Glowing, rotating, the promise of anywhere but here. “It was - comfortable. Felt like everything was okay, for once. Felt like - I dunno.”

“Are you unhappy?” Knowing those are the wrong words, that they’re clumsy and ineffective and too on-the-nose.

“We all are, sometimes. The important thing is we keep going.”

Is it? Is it really? But she smiles, and tugs him close, and almost a year after they had sex she kisses him on the lips for the first time. Softly, reassuringly, an implied promise. It’s okay, it’s okay.

 

* * *

Every day can be Wednesday, if you have a time machine. He doesn’t have to wait around so much anymore. She still has her life but it’s faster, now, more jumbled-up, more harried. She’s running, the way he runs, like you could outrun yourself if only you could be quick enough. The demons at their heels. Ahead: adventure. The near-death rush, the I-totally-pulled-that-off rush, the we-saved-the-universe rush. It feels amazing, being the person who fights the monsters and wins. Or, well, it clearly feels amazing for her. On his part, the pleasure has long since dwindled down into a shaky sort of status quo. Fun, ish, but also just what he does to not feel like shit. To not remember what he is, what he’s done. Because he’s not sure what else he’d be doing.

Three days on a desert planet with factions warring over dwindling oil supplies, and she’s laughing.

He takes her home on Thursday morning and watches her sleep through the day. Okay, he does other things too - Netflix in 2030 is so much better - and breaks some stuff, namely two plates and a few mugs when he forgets how to make tea. But he checks in on her. Tangled up in the bed-sheets, the cut on her forehead scrunching up around the butterfly stitches as she frowns.

She’ll be angry with him when she finds out he let her sleep through her alarm. She’ll be angry at him for a lot of things. He should care, but he doesn’t. Mostly he’s just happy she’s safe. Mostly he’s just looking forward to next Wednesday.

 

* * *

Friday. He’s still in her flat. She comes home from explaining why she no-called-no-showed to her work thing. With the miniature humans and the lesson plans. She sighs and locks the door behind her.

“Hey,” she says, tossing her purse onto the floor.

“Hey.”

Conversational requirements apparently fulfilled, she dashes across the gap between them, and kisses him. Hard and needy and the smallest of gasps as she pulls away just long enough to kiss him again. Not exactly what he’d been expecting, but he’s not about to complain. Her hand on his jaw, fingers aligned to the point where she could feel what he was thinking, if humans were telepathic. He thinks for her all the same. And receives, in return, a rough, incoherent psychic pressure. The things that she is. The mess, really, that they both are.

He lets her guide him to the bedroom. Lets her push him down to the mattress, staring at him as they go. As she straddles him, grinds slowly over him, her heat palpable through their layers of clothing. Gradually less layers. The first time he’s seen her naked, the first time she’s seen him. Literally, not metaphorically. Maybe metaphorically also.

Immediate gratification, why not. Her mouth hot and wet on his cock, hands clenching his thighs hard enough to leave marks. The moan he doesn’t bother to suppress. No sense trying to hide from her, not anymore. And besides, there’s always tomorrow. Always time to come to his senses, to pull away if this is his fault - and it had better be his fault, otherwise he’s no idea what to do. Can barely figure his own damn self out, let alone handle someone so much like him. She’s better than him, she’ll snap out of this. She has to. Just - later. After she finishes doing that thing with her fingers.

 

* * *

The randomizer sends them to a planet that’s been celebrating the new year for centuries. New millennium, maybe. He loses his jacket in the throng and then his hoodie and then just lets himself be carried along, the breeze on his bare arms and under his t-shirt. An unaccustomed vulnerability. And the rush - can he admit that now? - the sensory overload, the momentum of the crowd, the second-hand joy and the new experiences and Clara, of course, beautiful and wild-eyed, held aloft in the arms of a half-dozen people bearing her towards a combo swimming pool/bar. She catches his eyes, a challenging look, then jumps down. Still following the crowd, but dancing on her own now. And she’s laughing.


End file.
